In 2006, XPRIZE announced the Archon Genomics XPRIZE offering $10 million to the first team that could rapidly and accurately sequence 100 whole human genomes to a standard never before achieved at a cost of $10,000 or less per genome. After careful consideration, Dr. Craig Venter, our sponsors Stewart and Marilyn Blusson, and the XPRIZE board decided that the competition was not incentivizing the technological changes for which it was intended. For this reason, and for the first time ever, an XPRIZE was cancelled.Learn more about the competition

Media Mentions

On a crisp January morning, with snow topping the distant Aspromonte mountains and oranges ripening on the nearby trees, Giuseppe Passarino guided his silver minivan up a curving mountain road into the hinterlands of Calabria, mainland Italy’s southernmost region.

We stopped by to chat with the team from the X-Prize Foundation at the show. This dynamic, energetic group develops competitions to spur innovation, from space exploration to automotive efficiency to, now, health.